I’m reluctant to pass along good news to you guys on the voter ID front because I don’t want anybody getting their hopes up and getting complacent. People need to get IDs just in case! But cross your fingers because Judge Simpson is looking at the injunction options:
“I’m giving you a heads-up,” Commonwealth Court Judge Robert E. Simpson Jr. told lawyers after a day’s testimony on whether the law is being implemented in ways that ensure no voters will be disenfranchised. “I think it’s a possibility there could be an injunction here.”
Simpson then asked lawyers on both sides to be prepared to return to court Thursday to present arguments on what such an injunction should look like. There is no hearing Wednesday because of Yom Kippur.
Simpson gave few if any further clues to what he may decide. But his comments provided a dramatic end to a day of testimony in a protracted and widely watched fight over the law, which requires voters to present photo identification at the polls.
He’d be derelict if he did not grant an injunction, since PennDot is ill-equipped to keep up with the citizen demand for IDs.
During the re-hearing, the state once again changed the rules on how to get a photo ID. Now you can just apply and don’t need to prove where you live to get one or produce a birth certificate or anything else. That pretty much makes the law irrelevent and exposes it for what it was – a ham-handed (does Darryl Metcalfe do things any other way?) attempt to suppress turnout of people who tend to vote for Democrats more often than not.